Schizophrenia And The New Generation Of iPad Lovers

Well, hell has frozen over. Or, Microsoft Apologist Paul Thurrott has some kind of incurable disease and he aims to right his past wrongs before he kicks the bucket.

Somewhere on Thurrott’s bucket list was Apple’s iPad. Was? Yes, Paul Thurrott, crazy, visionless Paul, has one of the new iPads and he loves it. He gushes praise for an Apple product.

Apple’s latest iPad is a largely evolutionary device with an amazing, revolutionary new screen that puts it leagues above the competition. Already the best of the tablets, the new iPad extends Apple’s lead and puts Android and Windows 8 on notice: The bar has been raised yet again.

I’m thinking the pod people from the far reaches of the galaxy have infiltrated east earth (damned auto correct), found their way to control the most vile, hateful, unreasonable of earth’s spawn, and decided they needed to chill out. Inside Paul.

What does Apple’s reborn former nemesis say about the guts of the new iPad?

My guess is that Apple simply bolstered the old A5 as much as needed to ensure that the new device could drive all those pixels and yet deliver the same performance as its predecessor. That is not a complaint. In fact, this was clearly the right thing to do, both for customers and for developers. And there isn’t a single person on earth who could ever claim that the iPad 2 was slow. In fact, the performance of that device–and of the new iPad–is exemplary.

Remember, this is Paul Thurrott who is as giddy as a 16 year-old-girl swilling her first Screwdriver. The same Paul Thurrott who wrote this drivel just a couple of years ago.

And what’s with the huge bezel? It’s actually … can I say this about an Apple product? … ugly. The thing I don’t get here is… So far, nothing new. This has all been done before elsewhere. I’m astonished this isn’t nicer looking or more interesting.

Maybe Thurrott has been haunted by the ghost of Steve Jobs who took him to events in Thurrott’s past so he could see how his life turned out had he shunned Microsoft and adopted Apple products instead.

Now he’s trying to right his wrongs.

From Thurrott at Apple’s unveiling of the original iPad in 2010.

It seems like a high priced, unnecessary trinket to me. I like the idea of a video player. It’s too expensive for that, and 64 GB should be the starting point, not the upper end. The pricing is aggressive for Apple. The 3G pricing seems good, actually. The interface is obvious, not really innovative. Overall, this is a letdown. I’d be surprised to see anyone try to claim otherwise.

Here’s Paul Thurrott on Apple’s new iPad.

The new iPad is as close to no brainer status as such products come. It is beautiful to look at, a joy to use, blessed with the best screen on any mobile (or desktop) device, and backed by the strongest ecosystem of software and content on earth. The iPad line has risen from its paltry beginnings as a giant iPod touch to become the backbone of a new computing revolution. For many people, this is all the computing power and capability that will ever be needed. The iPad isn’t less expensive than a PC or Mac. But it’s a heck of a lot simpler.

So should you buy one? Hell, yes, you should buy one.

I’m serious. Hell has frozen over or Paul is suffering from schizophrenia or his mind has been swallowed whole by an invasion of pod people from the far reaches of the galaxy.